MobileUX

Vinton Cerf, internet co-founder and Google CIE (chief internet evangelist), spoke this week in Madrid about, well, the internet and Google’s role in it. One of the main points that he re-iterated was that for many people in the world, connecting to the internet from a mobile device will be their first interaction with the web.  What I read from the highlights of his talk is that Google, with its Android OS, is positioned not only to run on a mobile device that fits in your pocket (like the T-Mobile G1), but that it will run across multiple form factors, including netbooks. Since Android is free and open, Android will make a good run for netbook OS share.

And what does Palm, with its forthcoming WebOS, and Apple, with who-knows-what-announcement(s) at their upcoming developer confernce in June, have to offer?  From what I’ve hear, Palm’s WebOS runs on processors typically found not only in mobile phones but in netbooks as well. And can Apple’s OSX run/be modified to run on a device somewhere between an iPhone and a MacBook, perhaps a stripped down version of OSX? Yes, but since Apple doesn’t like to license its OS (they like to control the whole UX of the device), might we see a new device from them in the coming months?

All this is to point out that the idea of mobile is expanding – it is not just limited to one-handed operation and easily carried in our pockets. It is extending out to netbooks and other devices with wireless access. As an interesting example, some wireless carriers (Verizon, ATT, cough, cough) are now offering subsidized netbooks for signing up for multi-year service agreements. Sound familiar?  Same model U.S. carriers have tended to follow with mobile handsets – provide an inexpensive device but lock people into long/expensive/hard-to-get-out-of service agreements.

From a UX perspective, the landscape keeps changing. The number of screen sizes and input modes are increasing. Additional use cases and behaviors are unfolding. And additional best practices will need to be sorted out. At this point the space is expanding and things are getting sorted out, but we will hopefully start to see some convergence soon…

Boom times ahead for mobile Web access.